Today, August 28, 2006: Our guest speaker today is Gerry Jackson, the District Governor.
Gerry will arrive a half hour early, at 11:30 and will be available to answer any questions you may have about Rotary. He's looking forward to meeting Howell Rotarians.
NO meeting next week. It is Labor Day. It is the conclusion of Summer and the beginning of Autumn. It is also the start of school!
The Steering Committee meets this Thursday at noon at Cleary's. Any member is welcome to attend and to help shape our club.
Thank You to all you Rotarians who offered a Helping Hand to those in need during the Day of Caring. 15 members of our club took a half day off work to help those less fortunate than us. This is another example of Service Above Self and another contribution to Community.
Rotary Golf is September 12 at one o'clock at Hunters Ridge. We have 5-6 golfers right now, but we will need at least 10 to compete with Brighton and Sunrise Rotaries. See Fred today!
Congratulations to those Rotarians listed in the People's Choice awards given by the Press & Argus.
Dry Cleaners: Snedicor's Cleaners (Jim Gilligan)
Financial Planners: Smith Barney (Peter Bowen)
Insurance Agency: Cobb Hall (Mike Hall)
Football. Football has started already! Howell High School played its opening game last Friday and plays again this Friday. Michigan and Michigan State will play games this coming Saturday.
It is too early for football. Let's enjoy baseball for a while longer. Of course, baseball is too long. There are still months left.
In case you were wondering, here's a tidbit from District:
Greetings Fellow Rotarians,
We in Rotary are frequently talking about our DISTRICT....but...just what is a district and how did districts come about???
In 1912 delegates to the RI Convention saw the need to create geographic groupings of clubs because Rotary was growing a such a great pace. So they organized the Rotary world into 8 'divisions' each headed by a vice-president.
By 1915, Rotary changed the word division to district and used numbers to differentiate between the districts. Each district had 45-60 clubs that --on average--is the same today with the exception that NOW there are 32,000 clubs in 168 countries.
Today, in 2006, some districts are compacted into a very small geographic area. For example , London, England, is a district all by itself --with 80 clubs. At the other extreme some districts extend through many countries and even cross multiple time zones. District 5010 takes in USA Alaska, Canada's Yukon Territory and Russia's Siberian Territory--6.5 million square miles. Carolyn Jones, who spoke at last year's Foundation Gala, is a past governor of District 5010.
Each District --there are now 529 world wide--is presided over by a District Governor who is elected by the clubs in his/her district. The governor must conduct an Annual Conference, a training seminar for club presidents (PETS), and must visit every club in the district and evaluate its activities. This is no small task if one's district covers 12 time zones and 3 countries!
Our District 6380 is comprised of 50 clubs with about 2100 members. We have the uniqueness of being an international district because we have 42 clubs in Michigan and 8 clubs in Ontario , Canada.
Yours in Rotary Service,
RIO Merle
